- Joy to Great Caesar
Joy to Great Caesar was a royalist and anti-
Catholic political song written byThomas D'Urfey during the reign ofCharles II of England .D'Urfey, a
Tory by sympathies, set his own lyrics to the tune ofFarinel's Ground byMichel Farinelli , in which he criticized Catholic political designs and praised the King. D'Urfey's friendJoseph Addison later claimed that the success of the song so damaged the political prospects of the Whigs that they never recovered during the reign of Charles II, and that by using the music of theCatholic composer Farinelli for his anti-Catholic lyrics, D'Urfey had turned a considerable part of thePope 's music against himself [http://www.mspong.org/percy/music.htm#TomdUrfey] . Macaulay described the song as "a loyal ode, which had lately been written by Durfey, and which, though like all Durfey's writings, utterly contemptible, was, at that time, almost as popular asLillibullero became a few years later." He also recorded that the song was sung in a triumphal march by the newly elected members and "a long train of knights and squires," after an unpopular and controversialTory electoral victory inCheshire in1685 .References
*
Thomas Babington Macaulay , [http://www.strecorsoc.org/macaulay/m04b.html#4b1 "History of England", Vol. I, Chapter IV]
* [http://www.mspong.org/percy/music.htm#TomdUrfey "The Percy Anecdotes" (1820): Tom D'Urfey]
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